DEAD RECKONING

I have often composed poems while travelling,

particularly by train. These were written whilestationary. Yet, curiously, I find myself thinkingabout what they represent in terms of navigatingin the world.The five sequences represent the questions ofpoetics I happened to explore in the intervalsbetween trips to China in March, Venice inAugust and London in November.Almost naked? captures imagined moments withthe minimum of fuss; as close as I come to‘honest, primitive and real thoughts.’ Withallegiance to the dead uses a version of Burroughs’cut up technique to qualify incipient ambitionand optimism. Fatal tendency positionsattachments to things as nascent myths. If you arereading this... was inspired by the title of a BBCRadio 4 programme about the letters soldierswrite in case they die. Facts at last and morequestions returns to the quest for wit and wisdom,economy of means, and contact.I have no use for distinctions between one artand another. I try to remain open to the qualityof the materials to hand and make what I can ofthem. That is all. Geoff Matthews November 2008Dead Reckoninga collection of poems Geoffrey Mark Matthews

Facts at last and more questions 65

Appendix: Sources for With allegiance

to the dead 81

Colophon 85 Author notes 87

3For MaAlmost Naked?

Hank: To re-think a flow and a rhythm, a tumbling out of the

words, is a betrayal. That’s a sin Martin ...Martin: I don’t accept your catholic interpretation of my compulsive necessity to rewrite every single word at least a hundred times. Guilt is the key. …Guilt re not considering everything from every possible angle…Hank: Well how about guilt re censoring your best thoughts, your most honest, primitive, real thoughts?

a blissful retirementfishing or listening to Beethovenit may be mysticalwe may see visionsand make resolutionsbut after the ecstasy comes miseryfor we are not godswe have humour and paranoiawe sweatand we die

and your hand

if I scratch and search

if I navigate the lines

words flow and drapeand hang and die

if I take indelible ink

strike out on virgin paperlike a drunkI sink or sing

77Life or art

sex and death

that is itapparentlysowhy so many words?why so many acts of indecent banality?why so many attachments?why so many emotions?why so many molecules arranged so many ways?why so many people?why so many questions?

crossing some threshold

between complexity and eternitywe messed up79Appendix - With allegiance to the dead

Sources for ‘Dreams of Being’

Material is taken from the following papers inFuture Visions: the Unpublished Papers of AbrahamMaslow edited by Edward Hoffman:I – ‘My Early Revelations about Culture andPersonality’.II – ‘The Psychology of Happiness’.III – ‘Acceptance of the Beloved in Being-Love’,‘The Jonah Complex’ and ‘The Psychology ofTragedy’.IV – ‘Regaining our Sense of Gratitude’.V – ‘Higher Motivation and the NewPsychology’, ‘Laughter and Tears’ and ‘Science,Psychology, and the Existential Outlook’.VI – ‘Building Community Through T-Groups’.VII – ‘Fostering Friendship, Intimacy andCommunity’ and ‘Defining the AmericanDream’.

Sources for ‘The truth about humans’

I – The Worst Journey in the World by ApsleyCherry-Garrard (1886-1959), first-hand accountof Scott’s last Antarctic expedition 1910-13,published in 1922.II – The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyntranslated by Michael Guybon.

81III – ‘Shadow’, ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ and‘The Oblong Box’ in Tales of Mystery andImagination by Edgar Allan Poe.IV – A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess,Sanctuary by William Faulkner, and ‘How IvanIvanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich’ byNikoláy Vasilévich Gogol translated by RonaldWilks.V – Beethoven: His Spiritual Development by J W NSullivan and Games People Play by Eric Berne.VI – ‘Rabindranath Tagore and theConsciousness of Nationality’ in The Sense ofReality by Isaiah Berlin, The Birth of the Clinic byMichel Foucault translated by A M Sheridan,and Body and Soul by Anita Roddick.VII – The Conduct of Life by Lewis Mumford andThe Artful Designer by James GardnerVIII – The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler.IX – On Revolution by Hannah Arendt and TheVoices of Silence by André Malraux translated byStuart Gilbert.X – Way to Wisdom by Karl Jaspers translated byRalph Manhein, Berlin: Coming in from the Cold byKen Smith, and Illusion and Reality byChristopher Caudwell.XI – ‘The Destructive Character’ in One-WayStreet by Walter Benjamin translated by EdmundJephcott and Kingsley Shorter, and GAIA byJames Lovelock.Other sources:‘Invention’ – Physics and Philosophy by WernerHeisenberg‘Get weaving’ – Art and its Objects by RichardWollheim‘Revolution’ – Education Through Art by HerbertRead and ...

83Colophon

None of these poems has been published before.

I have neither sought nor received any financialassistance towards the writing. I did my ownphotography and page layouts. As the quotes Ihave used are very short, no specific copyrightclearances have been sought. The sources forWith allegiance to the dead have been exploitedin ways that preserve nothing of the originalauthors’ texts, so, again, no specific copyrightclearances have been sought. It may seem,therefore, that I have no debts or favours orpermissions to acknowledge. Not so. Withoutcertain provocations these poems would neverhave been written – thank you Mike.

Set in 12pt Garamond.

Printed and bound by Lulu – print on demand –http://www.lulu.com

85Geoffrey Mark Matthews is an artist,writer and university academic and lives inLincolnshire. He was born in 1954 andgrew up in North Yorkshire. He attendedRichmond School, Scarborough TechnicalCollege, Leeds Polytechnic and theUniversity of Hull. He worked as adesigner and curatorial assistant at theNational Maritime Museum, Greenwichbefore becoming a lecturer in 1986.His first collection of poems, pausing atAnger, was published in 1985 and hissecond, The Familiar Reaches, in 2004.